)NF5AME 


,Ui 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 


One  American's  Opinion  of  the 
European  War 


One  American's 
Opinion  of  the 
European  War 


An  Answer  to 
Germany's  Appeals 


By 

Frederick  W.  Whitridge 


NEW  YORK 

EPDUTTON  &•  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1914 

BY 

E.  P.  BUTTON    &    CO. 


•      •   .     .  .  •      .     ■  .         ■ '        ' 

.,    •  *^. •  •     •     «t'  •*  •  t « « 

*  r  • 


TTbe  ftnicfterboctier  |>reee,  Devp  l!?orl{ 


^   u  i  J 


PREFACE 

IN  the  present  great  European 
conflict  the  United  States  is 
neutral,  and  under  any  circum- 
stances of  which  I  can  conceive, 
it  ought  to,  and  will,  remain  neu- 
tral. Why,  therefore,  the  sym- 
pathies and  the  opinions  of  Amer- 
ica should  be  of  importance  to 
any  of  the  contestants,  I  do  not 
understand.  I  am  informed,  how- 
ever, that  the  German  Government 
has  established  here  a  very  per- 
sistent, expensive,  and,  of  course, 
efficient     Publicity     Department, 


21101)4 


vi  PREFACE 

which  is  appealing  to  Americans 
for  their  sympathy  and  endeavor- 
ing to  make  them  believe  a  number 
of  things  which  at  present  they  do 
not  believe  at  all.  If  those  en- 
deavors are  worth  while,  it  is 
equally  worth  while  to  let  that 
Publicity  Department  —  together 
with  the  few,  more  or  less  American 
busybodies,  whom  it  has  beguiled 
with  a  promise  of  the  limelight — 
know  that  in  the  judgment  of  at 
least  one  man  a  very  great  major- 
ity of  the  people  of  this  country 
feel  that  the  kind  of  civilization 
under  which  they  were  born  and 
have  been  brought  up,  has  been 
put  in  peril  by  a  wanton  breach 
of  the  peace  of  the  world  by  the 
German  Empire.     Bernhardi  de- 


PREFACE  Vll 

clared  that  the  struggle  is  for 
German  world-power  or  downfall. 
If  that  be  the  issue,  we  are  in  favor 
of  the  downfall. 

The  same  military  philosopher 
says:  "The  American  plutocrats 
have  no  notion  that  the  widening 
development  of  mankind  has  quite 
other  concerns  than  material  pros- 
perity, commerce,  and  money- 
making."  But  "the  widening 
development  of  mankind"  means 
not  only  those  things,  but  it 
means  that  more  and  more  human 
beings  shall  have  freedom  to  de- 
velop their  own  souls  without 
government  restraint  or  assistance, 
and  it  also  means  that  a  military 
autocracy,  or  a  comparatively 
small    number  of  people,  intoxi- 


VIU  PREFACE 

cated  by  the  magnitude  of  their 
own  power,  under  any  other  name, 
shall  have  less  and  less  freedom 
to  impose  upon  us  the  primeval 
law  of  the  strongest. 

F.  W.  W. 


Contents 


PAGE 


Observations  on  the  War  .  i 
The  Responsibility  for  the  War  4 
Germany's  Self-Deception  .  9 
Mercenaries  .  .  .  -19 
Germans  Then  and  Now  .  .  25 
Scraps  of  Paper  .  .  .42 
Examples  of  German  "  Culture"  46 
The  Appeals  to  America  .  .  57 
Germany  and  Colonial  Empire  65 
America's  Reply  to  the  Appeals    77 


XI 


One  American's  Opinion  of  the 
European  War 


observations  on   the  War. 


COR  many  years  certain  German 
^  publicists  have  been  writing 
about  "a  day  of  reckoning  with 
England."  They  have  not  been 
very  explicit  about  the  account 
on  which  the  reckoning  was  to  be 
had,  but  generally  the  day  of 
reckoning  was  that  upon  which  it 
was  to  be  decided  whether  many 
desirable  things  in  the  possession 
of  England  should  be  taken  away 
and  made  German.  For  nearly 
as  many  years  also  the  youth  of 


2      OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  WAR 

Germany,  especially  in  the  navy, 
have  been  drinking  to  the  toast 
of  "The  Day." 

"The  Day"  has  at  last  come, 
and  brought  with  it  the  most 
gigantic  and  the  most  wicked  war 
of  the  whole  Christian  era.  Eigh- 
teen million  men  or  more,  in  the 
flower  of  their  age,  are  striving 
to  kill  one  another,  the  war  is  on 
land  and  sea,  under  the  face  of  the 
waters,  and  from  the  heavens 

"There  rained  a  ghastly  dew 
From  the  nations'  airy  navies  grappling 
in  the  central  blue." 

To  US,  behind  the  insurmountable 
barrier  of  the  ocean,  "The  Day" 
seems  to  be  the  very  Dies  Irae — a 
day  of  wrath  and  doom,  and  the 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  WAR      3 

civilization  mankind  has  been  for 
three  hundred  years  so  laboriously 
building,  like  the  ants  or  the  coral 
insects,  appears  to  be  crumbling 
into  ashes.  As  the  misery,  the 
bestiality,  and  desolation  of  that 
"Day"  become  apparent,  there  is 
a  general  appeal  to  public  opinion 
by  all  the  contestants  to  divest 
themselves  of  responsibility  for  its 
horrors. 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  FOR 
THE  WAR 

Germany  has  made  an  elaborate 
formal  statement  of  its  position. 
England  and  Russia  have  published 
in  full  the  correspondence  leading 
up  to  the  war,  and  from  German 
sources  or  from  the  friends  of 
Germany,  many  appeals  have  been 
made  for  the  sympathy  and  ap- 
proval of  America.  Professors 
have  appealed  to  the  universities, 
clergymen  to  the  churches;  the 
professional  German- Americans  to 
everybody,    and    amongst    many 

4 


RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  WAR    5 

others,  one  pamphlet  with  no  less  a 
title  than  "Truth,"  has  been  issued 
over  the  signature  of  Herr  Ballin 
of  the  Hamburg- American  Steam- 
ship Company,  Prince  Biilow,  and 
a  number  of  important  names,  to 
the  countrymen  of  Washington 
and  Lincoln. 

It  might  be  a  sufificient  answer 
to  all  of  these  appeals  to  point  out 
that  the  Triple  Alliance  was,  by 
its  terms,  for  defensive  purposes, 
and  Italy,  the  third  member  of 
the  Alliance,  when  appealed  to  by 
the  others,  replied:  "But  you  have 
not  been  attacked.  You  have 
taken  the  initiative,  and,  therefore, 
we  are  absolved  from  our  con- 
tract." Or  else  to  say  with  the 
New  York  Times  of  Sunday,  the 


6    RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  WAR 

27th  of  September,  which  has 
published  and  weighed  all  the 
correspondence  and  evidence: 

"The  case  is  quite  too  plain  for 
further  argument.  We  trust  that 
our  German  friends,  should  they 
persevere  in  their  endeavors  to 
conciliate  American  public  opinion, 
will  at  least  refrain  from  further 
affronts  to  our  intelligence  by  the 
reiteration  of  the  charge  that  Eng- 
land is  responsible  for  the  war,  or 
that  Russia  began  the  war  on 
Germany  in  pursuance  of  her  pan- 
Slavic  designs." 

I  believe  the  Times  is  right.  I 
do  not  think  you  could  empanel  a 
jury  in  the  United  States — outside 
of  Hoboken  or  Milwaukee — which 
would    not     find    that    Germany 


RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  WAR    7 

began  this  war,  and  that  England 
went  into  it  only  upon  the  appeal 
of  King  Albert  of  Belgium  to  King 
George  to  protect  the  neutrality  of 
Belgium. 

It  is  as  clear  to  me  as  the  day- 
light that  the  invasion  of  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium  was  the 
proximate  cause  of  the  war,  at 
least  with  Great  Britain,  and  there 
is  a  sufficient  amount  of  evidence 
to  make  it  equally  clear  that 
Germany  had  long  been  preparing 
for  the  war,  and  intended  to  have 
it  at  about  this  time,  before  even 
the  particular  pretext  for  it  was 
found.  I  know  of  four  cases 
during  the  month  of  July  in 
which  orders  were  given  in  pre- 
paration for   war,   and   the   view 


8    RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  WAR 

SO  earnestly  pressed  in  Germany 
that  the  three  Powers  fell  upon 
Germany  without  warning  is  an 
idle  tale. 


GERMANY'S  SELF-DECEPTION 

What  is  not  clear  is,  how  Ger- 
many allowed  herself  to  be  so 
grievously  deceived  as  to  the  status 
of  those  she  was  about  to  make  her 
enemies,  the  British  Empire  in 
particular,  and  as  to  the  manner 
in  which  her  violation  of  Belgium's 
neutrality  would  be  appraised  by 
the  world.  She  apparently  be- 
lieved that  the  French  army  was  in 
as  bad  a  way  as  an  orator  in  the 
French  Chamber  declared  it  to  be. 
The  issue  has  almost  proved  the 
orator  to  be  wrong.     She  believed 

9 


10  Germany's  self-deception 


the  reorganization  of  the  Russian 
army  could  not  be  completed  for 
another  two  years.  She  believed 
that  there  would  be  civil  war  in 
Ireland  within  six  weeks,  that 
there  would  be  rebellions  in  India 
and  Egypt,  that  South  Africa 
would  rush  to  her  with  open  arms, 
and  that  Great  Britain  would 
never  voluntarily  fight,  if  at  all. 

What  has  happened  ?  The 
French  army  seems  to  be  in  good 
form,  the  Russians  appear  to  have 
an  abundance  of  troops,  and  in 
England  John  Redmond  has  sung 
"God  save  the  King"  at  West- 
minister, and  is  now  telling  his 
constituents  in  the  south  of  Ireland 
that  he  had  promised  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Malines  that  the  Irish 


GERMANY  S    SELF-DECEPTION   1 1 

would  come  in  their  thousands  to 
avenge  the  destruction  of  cathe- 
drals, churches,  the  shooting  of 
priests,  and  the  sack  and  ruin  of 
Belgian  towns.  In  India,  seven 
hundred  princes  have  offered  to 
the  Imperial  Government  their 
armies,  their  jewels,  and  contribu- 
tions of  money  ranging  up  to 
£300,000.  In  Egypt,  there  has 
hardly  been  a  mutter.  In  South 
Africa,  General  Botha,  the  Prime 
Minister,  declared  that  while  the 
Boers  had  had  their  differences 
with  Great  Britain,  the  latter  had 
kept  faith  with  South  Africa,  and 
anyway  the  South  Africans  would 
ten  times  rather  be  under  the 
British,  than  under  the  German, 
flag.     General  Smuts  echoed  Gen- 


12     GERMANY'S   SELF-DECEPTION 

eral  Botha,  and  three  or  four 
former  Boer  generals  have  volun- 
teered to  serve  under  French  and 
Kitchener.  It  was  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  opinion  of  the 
people  would  be  unanimous  as  was 
that  of  their  South  African  Par- 
liament, and  Germany  has  actu- 
ally been  able  to  foment  an  unim- 
portant opposition.  On  this  record 
Germany  must  obviously  have 
been  very  badly  served  by  her  own 
Ambassadors  and  Ministers,  or 
else  she  must  be  under  an  obsession 
about  her  own  grandeur  and  pop- 
ularity to  make  such  a  series  of 
egregious  blunders. 

In  1870,  Mr.  Gladstone's  Gov- 
ernment made  the  same  inquiries 
of    Prince    Bismarck    which    Sir 


GERMANY  S    SELF-DECEPTION   1 3 

Edward  Grey  made  this  year  of 
Bethmann-Hollweg  and  of  the 
French  Government  about  the 
Belgian  treaty,  but  Sir  Edward 
got  an  entirely  different  answer 
from  Germany  from  that  Prince 
Bismarck  gave  to  Mr.  Gladstone. 
Mr.  Asquith  at  Edinburgh,  on 
September  17th,  thus  stated  the 
British  attitude.  "In  1793,"  he 
said  Wm.  Pitt  announced:  "Eng- 
land will  never  consent  that  an- 
other country  should  arrogate  the 
power  of  annulling  at  her  pleasure 
the  political  system  of  Europe 
established  by  solemn  treaties  and 
guaranteed  by  the  consent  of  the 
Powers."  He  went  on  to  say: 
"This  House" — the  House  of  Com- 
mons— "means    substantial    good 


14  Germany's  self-deception 

faith  to  its  engagements.  If  it  re- 
tains a  just  sense  of  the  solemn  faith 
of  treaties  it  must  show  a  deter- 
mination to  support  them,  but  I 
come  down  to  1870  when  this  very 
treaty  to  which  we  are  parties  no 
less  than  Germany,  and  which 
guarantees  the  integrity  and  inde- 
pendence of  Belgium,  was  threat- 
ened. Mr.  Gladstone  was  then 
Prime  Minister  of  this  country, 
and  he  was,  if  possible,  a  stronger 
and  more  ardent  advocate  of  peace 
even  than  Mr.  Pitt  himself.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  pacific  as  he  was,  felt  so 
strongly  the  sanctity  of  our  obliga- 
tions that — though  here  again  we 
had  no  direct  interest  of  any  kind 
at  stake — he  made  arrangements 
with  France  and   Prussia  to  co- 


Germany's  self-deception  15 

operate  with  either  of  the  belHger- 
ents  if  the  other  violated  Belgian 
territory.  In  a  speech  ten  years 
later,  delivered  in  1880  in  the  city 
of  Edinburgh,  Mr.  Gladstone  him- 
self reviewed  that  transaction  and 
explained  his  reasons  for  it.  He 
said  this :  '  If  we  had  gone  to  war ' 
— which  he  was  prepared  to  do — 
'we  should  have  gone  to  war  for 
freedom.  We  should  have  gone 
to  war  for  public  right,  we  should 
have  gone  to  war  to  save  human 
happiness  from  being  invaded  by 
a  tyrannous  and  lawless  Power. 
That,'  Mr.  Gladstone  said,  'is 
what  I  call  a  good  cause,  gentlemen, 
though  I  detest  war,  and  there 
are  no  epithets  too  strong,  if  you 
will  supply  me  with  them,  that  I 


1 6  Germany's  self-deception 

will  not  endeavor  to  heap  upon  its 
head.'" 

The  German  reply  to  every  such 
statement  of  Mr.  Asquith's  is,  That 
is  all  humbug,  hypocrisy,  and  cant! 
The  English  are  fighting  us  from 
envy  and  for  their  own  interest  and 
are  lying  about  their  motives. 
Well,  suppose  that  to  be  so,  would 
anybody  but  a  nincompoop,  as 
M.  Hanotaux  pleasantly  calls  the 
German  diplomatist,  have  given 
the  English  such  a  magnificent 
pretext  for  concealing  their  motive 
as  the  German  repudiation  of  the 
Belgian  treaty  has  afforded  them? 

Suppose  the  Germans  had  this 
year  followed  the  same  course  as 
that  of  Prince  Bismarck  in  1870, 
and  France  had  been  invaded  as 


GERMANY  S   SELF-DECEPTION  1 7 

it  was  in  that  year  by  the  way  of 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  the  Germans 
would  by  this  time  have  been  as 
far  advanced  into  France  as  they 
are  now,  they  would  have  come 
with  clean  hands,  they  would  have 
escaped  the  losses  they  have  suf- 
fered at  the  hands  of  the  Belgians, 
they  probably  would  not  have  had 
England  on  their  hands  or  else  its 
hypocrisy  and  cant  would  have 
been  unmasked,  and  they  would 
not  have  lost  every  friend  they 
had.  What  can  we  think  of  such 
diplomacy?  And  as  if  they  had 
not  made  blunder  enough  the 
Germans  have  now  made  the  cap- 
ital mistake  of  utterly  despising 
their  adversaries.  The  Emperor 
himself  within  twelve  months  has 


1 8  Germany's  self-deception 

said,  waving  his  arm  through  the 
air:  "We  shall  go  through  Bel- 
gium like  that."  He  did  not, 
and  the  Germans  have  lavished 
contempt  upon  the  little  English 
army,  and  have  wound  up  by 
denouncing  it  as  made  up  of  mer- 
cenaries, an  expression  I  have 
heard  repeated  by  their  sympa- 
thizers in  this  country. 


MERCENARIES 

Mercenaries !  Why,  my  friends, 
you  do  not  know  what  the  word 
means.  The  Germans  furnished 
indeed  the  principal  mercenary 
soldiery  during  the  middle  ages, 
but  the  last  mercenaries  I  have 
heard  of  were  the  Swiss  Guard  of 
Louis  XVI  whose  glory  is  per- 
petuated by  Thorwaldsen's  Lion 
at  Lucerne,  and  the  Hessians,  some 
thousands  of  whom  came  to  this 
country  to  assist  George  III  in 
suppressing  the  American  Revolu- 
tion.    They  did  no  credit  to  them- 

19 


20  MERCENARIES 

selves,  to  the  Prince  who  sold 
them,  or  the  King  who  bought 
them.  The  very  name  Hessian 
has  become  a  word  of  reproach  in 
the  United  States.  I  have  even 
heard  of  it  being  applied  by  Tam- 
many leaders  to  the  editors  of 
German  newspapers  who  were  ne- 
gotiating with  them  for  the  deliv- 
ery of  the  German-American  vote. 
Let  me  recall  to  those  gentlemen, 
by  the  way,  a  remark  of  the 
Kaiser's  for  which  we  should  all 
be  grateful  to  him;  he  said: 
"Germans,  I  know,  Americans  I 
know,  German-Americans  I  do 
not  know. "  What  conceivable  re- 
lation have  such  mercenaries  either 
to  the  compulsory  army  of  Ger- 
many or  the  volunteer  army  of 


MERCENARIES  21 

Great  Britain,  and  what  ethical 
difference  can  there  be  between 
the  soldiers  who  serve  their  own 
countries  for  a  pittance  a  day 
because  they  have  to,  and  others 
because  they  wish  to?  Such  errors 
of  judgment  and  of  fact  show  they 
no  longer  read  Schiller  in  the 
Wilhelm  Strasse,  or  have  for- 
gotten his  famous  line,  "Mit  der 
Dummheit  kampfen  Gotter  selbst 
vergebens. " 

There  is,  however,  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  the  two 
armies.  The  German  soldier  is  a 
cog  in  a  vast  machine;  he  is 
spoken  of  and  treated  oftentimes 
as  mere  Kanonen  flitter.  His  offf- 
cers  form  a  caste  by  themselves 
and   behave   as   if   they   were   of 


22  MERCENARIES 

different  clay  from  their  men. 
There  are  many  instances  in  this 
war  when,  after  officers  were  cap- 
tured, they  complained  bitterly 
when  they  were  put  in  the  same 
railway  carriages  or  in  the  same 
hospital  quarters,  or  were  given 
the  same  food  as  their  own  men. 

The  English  soldier  is  an  individ- 
ual. There  is  a  certain  camara- 
derie between  him  and  his  officers 
born  of  the  universal  love  of  sports 
and  its  attendant  democracy  in 
the  cricket  and  playing  fields  of 
every  village  and  town  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  Father  Molloy, 
a  priest  who  has  been  serving  as 
chaplain  with  part  of  the  British 
forces  and  who  crossed  the  ocean 
with    me    the    other    day,    said: 


MERCENARIES  2$ 

"General  French,  no  matter 
how  hard  he  had  to  fight  during 
the  day,  always  tried  to  spend 
a  little  time  in  the  field  hospital 
at  night  with  the  wounded.  He 
would  stroll  in,  sometimes  accom- 
panied by  an  orderly,  but  many 
times  alone.  He  would  ask  the 
wounded  how  they  were  getting 
on,  and  in  the  case  of  chaps  shot 
through  their  legs,  would  slap 
them  on  the  back  and  say:  'Fine 
business,  old  boy.  You'll  get  him 
next  time.  How  soon  will  you 
be  out  and  back  with  us?' 

"And  sometimes  the  General 
would  stay  too  long  and  realize 
that  he  could  not  get  back  to 
headquarters  that  night.  Then 
he  would  wrap  a  blanket  around 


24  MERCENARIES 

him  and  curl  up  on  a  vacant  cot  or 
on  the  floor  alongside  a  wounded 
'Tommy'  and  go  to  sleep.  I  tell 
you,  every  British  soldier  is  strong 
for  Sir  John  French — a  real  man 
as  well  as  a  soldier. " 

That  is  the  human  touch  which 
makes  men  invincible.  I  can  im- 
agine the  same  thing  might  have 
happened  with  one  of  the  generals 
of  the  Great  Frederick,  but  what 
German  general  of  this  generation 
would  so  demean  himself? 


GERMANS  THEN  AND  NOW 

In  these  observations  about  Ger- 
many, England,  and  the  war,  I 
venture  to  believe,  with  at  least 
as  much  modesty  as  the  professors 
and  the  publicists  who  are  appeal- 
ing to  the  sympathy  of  America, 
that  I  know  something  about  the 
subject  under  discussion.  I  once 
lived  in  Germany,  and  passed  two 
of  the  happiest  years  of  my  life 
in  that  country.  I  have  traveled 
all  over  it.  I  sat  at  the  feet  of 
Treitschke  when  he  was  less  bitter 
than  his  infirmities  subsequently 

25 


26     GERMANS    THEN   AND   NOW 

made  him.  I  have  known  Ger- 
mans of  every  class,  from  the  top 
down.  I  found  them  all  and  more 
than  all  that  General  Bernhardi 
now  says  they  ought  not  to  be. 
They  were  peaceable,  simple,  and 
friendly.  Their  knowledge,  their 
industry,  and  economy  were  revel- 
ations to  me.  I  saw  in  the  Ger- 
man army  a  great  and  necessary 
means  of  education,  and  when  I 
came  home  it  was  with  great 
respect  for  the  administration  of 
the  German  Government,  and  a 
deep  affection  for  the  German 
people.  I  have  watched  their  de- 
velopment for  many  years  since 
then  with  admiration,  and  their 
competition  with  the  English  with 
a  certain  amusement,  because  they 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     2/ 

waked  up  my  English  friends  when 
they  did  not  wish  to  be  awakened. 
After  a  good  many  years  I  went 
back  to  Germany  for  a  visit  and 
one  of  the  first  things  which 
struck  me  was  numerous  gigantic 
national  statues  which  were  hide- 
ous, and  which  literally  defiled 
the  earth  everywhere,  and  when  I 
asked  why  such  monstrosities  were 
permitted,  the  answer  was,  "Man 
muss  Stolz  sein."  Finally,  when 
I  came  upon  the  monument  to  the 
old  Emperor,  between  the  old 
Castle  in  Berlin  and  the  River 
Spree,  I  said  to  myself:  "I  must 
have  been  asleep.  This  thing 
could  not  be  tolerated  by  people 
who  had  any  sense  of  beauty,  of 
perspective,  or  proportion.     This 


28     GERMANS   THEN   AND  NOW 

cannot  be  Berlin  and  Imperial 
Germany.  It  must  be  only  some 
Greater  Pumpernickel . "  In  every 
direction  there  were  evidences  of 
a  great  change  in  the  cities  and  in 
the  people.  The  urban  communi- 
ties as  a  whole  were  wonderfully 
improved,  and  the  cleanliness  and 
orderliness  of  everything  were  very 
remarkable.  The  country  had 
grown  rich,  and  enjoyed  a  great 
and  visible  prosperity.  Berlin  had 
grown  faster  than  any  American 
city — even  in  Hinter  Pommern  I 
believe  they  were  making  money. 
The  demeanor  and  talk  of  the 
people  had  changed  as  much  as 
everything  else;  the  old  simplicity 
and  modesty  had  disappeared, 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  about 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     29 

abominable  scandals  in  high  so- 
ciety, and  generally  the  people 
were  exhibiting  the  worst  vices  of 
a  raw  plutocracy. 

The    English    "milords"    with 
Waterloo  on  their  lips  used  to  be  the 
most  offensive  people  in  Europe. 
They  were  ousted  by  the  Ameri- 
cans with    their  vulgar    extrava- 
gance and  their  ignorant  compari- 
sons of   everything  they  thought 
they  saw,  with  what  they  remem- 
bered in   "God's  own  country." 
But  during  the  past  decade  the 
Germans  have  become  easily  the 
most  objectionable  people  to  be 
seen  in  the  inns  and  on  the  high- 
ways of  the  Continent.     Mr.  Price 
Collier  called  them  the  "boors  of 
Europe,"  to  the  intense  displeas- 


30     GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW 

ure  of  the  Berlin  press,  when  he 
appeared  at  Court  functions  at  the 
head  of  the  Linden.  This  change 
in  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
people  was  especially  noticeable 
in  respect  to  England.  It  is  fre- 
quently said  here  and  elsewhere 
that  it  is  the  Kaiser  himself  who 
has  made  this  war,  or  that  he 
could  have  prevented  it.  I  do  not 
think  those  who  make  that  charge 
have  any  conception  of  the  state 
of  mind  of  the  people  behind  him 
and  his  advisers.  The  Germans 
used  to  have  rather  a  friendly  feel- 
ing for  Great  Britain:  they  ad- 
mired her  and  thought  of  her  as 
their  former  ally  and  friend, 
though  the  late  Crown  Princess, 
the    present    Emperor's    mother, 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     3 1 

did  a  good  deal  to  make  England 
disliked, — but  the  German  com- 
mercial and  working  classes  have 
not  even  now  desired  war,  for 
many  practical  reasons,  but  under- 
neath the  peaceable  and  friendly 
surface  which  they  presented,  there 
lay  a  deep  and  general  feeling 
against  England.  It  is  not  the 
individual  Englishman  whom  Ger- 
mans dislike,  but  England  as  a 
Power;  they  despise  her  as  they 
do  all  other  nations  except  perhaps 
America,  which  they  fear  as  a 
commercial  rival.  The  German 
writers  on  the  war  since  it  has 
begun  all  say  that  England  is 
jealous  of  Germany,  and  therefore 
seized  the  opportunity  to  attack 
her,  but  in  all  my  conversations 


32      GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW 

with  Germans,  I  have  found  the 
reverse  to  be  true.  I  have  noticed 
a  curious  mixture  of  envy  and 
contempt  for  England — envy  be- 
cause the  EngHsh  have  certain 
amenities  of  life  which  every  Ger- 
man copies  as  fast  as  he  can;  and 
contempt,  for  which  I  have  never 
heard  any  better  reason  than  that, 
as  they  look  at  it,  English  officers 
are  ashamed  of  their  uniforms,  and 
get  out  of  them  and  into  civil  dress 
as  soon  as  they  can.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
annoyance  among  the  English  with 
the  Germans  because  they  have 
been  hustled  by  the  Germans  in 
business,  which  is  probably  good 
for  them;  but  as  for  being  jealous 
of  the  Germans,  I  cannot  imagine 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     33 

an  Englishman  who  would  not  say  : 
"Jealous  of  the  Germans!  Why 
on  earth  should  we  be?" 

The  Germans,  however,  really 
believed  that  England  was  worn 
out  politically,  commercially,  and 
on  the  sea,  and  that  its  army  was 
negligible.  This  feeling  has  occa- 
sionally blazed  up  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  as  at  the  time  of  the 
Kaiser's  telegram  to  Kriiger  during 
the  Boer  War,  at  the  time  of  the 
Algeciras  conference,  and  during 
the  Morocco  crisis.  The  Kaiser 
himself  has  been  accused  of  being 
too  friendly  with  England,  and 
now  that  all  this  smoldering  envy, 
dislike,  and  even  hate  have  kindled 
into  the  red  flame  of  war,  the  Gov- 
ernment, the  public,  and  the  press 


34     GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW 

have  let  themselves  go  indeed. 
The  Kaiser  is  reported  as  say- 
ing, "It  is  my  royal  and  im- 
perial will  that  General  French's 
contemptible  little  English  army 
shall  first  be  crushed,"  and 
the  Hamburger  Nachrichten,  Bis- 
marck's old  organ,  said  on 
August  28th: 

"We  have  taken  the  field  against 
Russia  and  France,  but  at  the 
bottom  it  is  England  we  are  fight- 
ing everywhere.  We  must  prove 
to  Russia  the  superiority  of  our 
culture  and  of  our  military  might. 
We  must  force  France  on  her 
knees  until  she  chokes.  It  is  not 
yet  time  to  offer  terms.  But  be- 
tween Russia  and  Germany  there 
is  no  insoluble  problem.     France, 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     35 

too,  fights  chiefly  for  honor's  sake. 
It  is  from  England  we  must 
wring  the  uttermost  price  for 
this  gigantic  struggle,  however 
dearly  others  may  have  to  pay 
for  the  help  they  have  given 
her." 

That  is  the  note  which  runs 
through  the  whole  German 
press — that  is  "die  letzte  und 
grosste  Abrechnung — mit  Eng- 
land." 

The  origin  of  these  changes  in 
the  mind  of  the  German  people, 
and  the  ultimate  causes  of  the 
war  itself,  I  will  not  undertake  to 
discuss.  The  differing  national 
ideals,  the  racial  antipathies,  the 
fundamental  differences  between 
German  and  English  civilizations 


36     GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW 

are  subjects  too  vast  for  just  con- 
siderations within  the  Hmits  of 
this  paper.  Whether  the  war  was 
brought  on  at  this  time  for  the 
love  of  war  for  war's  own  sake, 
and  was  the  mere  effervescence  of 
arrogance  on  the  part  of  the 
military  hierarchy;  whether  it  is 
the  Prussian  desire  for  greater 
influence  or  more  power  which 
filled  Prince  Hohenlohe  with  ap- 
prehension about  the  future  of  the 
Empire  whenever  he  found  himself, 
as  he  said,  among  "their  Prussian 
Excellencies";  whether  it  is  the 
Pan-Germanic  propaganda  which 
means  nothing  less  than  the  domi- 
nation of  the  world,  or  at  least  of 
Europe,  by  the  Germanic  race; 
whether  it,  as  has  been  charged, 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     37 

has  been  hastened  by  the  great 
financial  interests  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Gwinner,  Tyssen,  Rath- 
enau,  and  others  for  their  own 
patriotic  purposes;  or  whether, 
finally,  it  was  Nietzsche's  philoso- 
phy, or  all  these  causes  together, 
I  will  not  venture  to  say.  An 
answer  can  be  found  in  Bern- 
hardi's  book,  Germany  and  the 
Next  War;  in  Professor  Cramb's 
admirable  reply,  entitled  Germany 
and  England;  and  in  the  numerous 
works  of  Pan-Germanism,  of  which 
Professor  Usher's  is  the  most  fa- 
miliar to  us. 

The  cause  which  has  certainly 
colored  all  the  others  is  Nietzsche's 
philosophy  of  which  an  American 
scholar  says: 


211004 


38     GERMANS   THEN  AND   NOW 

"The  German  war  personality 
is  Nietzsche — based  on  a  phi- 
losophy which  has  taken  a  deeper 
hold  on  the  German  mind  than  any 
other  since  Hegel.  Nietzsche  wor- 
shipped power.  His  ethics  were: 
*  Do,  be,  get  everything  you  have 
the  strength  to  do.  Pity  is  a  vice. 
Evolution  means  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  and  the  destruction  of 
the  unfit.  Christianity  with  its 
sympathy  for  the  poor  in  spirit 
means  decadence,  was  a  disease. 
The  world  belongs  to  those  who 
have  the  might  to  get  it,  and 
treaties,  peace  pacts,  arbitrations, 
are  mere  points  of  strategy  to 
mislead  other  nations,  and  when 
the  grim  reality  of  war  comes 
they  all  vanish  and  are  forgotten. 


GERMANS    THEN    AND    NOW     39 


<<  < 


Indeed,  sympathy  with  the 
weak,  the  stiffering,  and  the  power 
of  pathos  are  themselves  weak- 
nesses, and  might  is  the  ultimate 
proof  of  right.  The  worid  be- 
longs to  those  who  can  get  it, 
and  those  who  have  broken 
through  to  these  supermorals  have 
the    world    that    believes    in    the 

old-fashioned     virtues     at     their 

' "  I 
mercy. 

Whatever  the  causes,  the  war 
has  come,  its  horrors  are  appar- 
ent, and  the  spirit  with  which 
Germany  entered  upon  it  is,  I 
believe,  fairly  expressed  by  the 
Lokalanzeiger,  of  Berlin,  on  Au- 
gust  3d.     It  said: 

"We  begin  to-day  the  final  fight 

» President  Stanley  Hall,  of  Worcester. 


40     GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW 

which  shall  settle  forever  our  great 
position  in  the  world,  which  we 
have  never  misused,  and  when  the 
German  sword  glides  again  into  its 
scabbard  everything  that  we  hope 
and  wish  will  be  consummated. 
We  shall  stand  before  the  world 
as  the  mightiest  nation,  which  will 
then,  at  last,  be  in  a  position,  with 
its  moderation  and  forbearance, 
to  give  to  the  world  forever  those 
things  for  which  it  has  never  ceased 
to  strive — Peace,  Enlightenment, 
and  Prosperity." 

Now,  that  is  what  we  call  very 
tall  talk,  which  we  do  not  much 
care  to  hear  from  other  people,  and 
when  the  Germans  ask  for  sym- 
pathy in  these  United  States,  I 
venture  to  assert  that  they  will  get 


GERMANS   THEN   AND   NOW     4 1 

precious  little  of  it,  because  we  are 
essentially  a  business  people,  a 
civil  and  kindly  people,  and  be- 
cause we  are  not  a  cruel  people. 


SCRAPS  OF  PAPER 

When  the  German  Chancellor 
angrily  called  the  Belgian  treaty 
"a  scrap  of  paper,"  which  must 
be  disregarded  because  Germany 
was  in  a  hurry  and  because  it  was 
necessary  for  the  German  armies 
to  go  through  Belgium  in  order  to 
save  time,  the  New  York  World 
replied  magnificently:  "So  was 
Magna  Charta  a  scrap  of  paper; 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  were 

all  scraps  of  paper,  and  if  there  is 

42 


SCRAPS   OF   PAPER  43 

no  faith  or  honor  in  the  world,  that 
is  all  they  are  still."  But  we  do 
not  believe  it.  The  capacity  to 
make  contracts  and  enforce  them 
is  one  of  the  corner-stones  of  our 
civilization,  and  one  of  the  marks 
of  an  honorable  man  is  the  way  in 
which  he  lives  up  to  his  contracts. 
Perhaps  the  Chancellor  would  like 
to  know  how  his  views  are  looked 
at  practically  in  this  country.  I 
happen  to  know  of  a  bank  in  this 
city,  where  the  majority  of  direc- 
tors have  German  names,  or  are 
of  German  birth.  At  first,  their 
sympathies  were  all  with  the 
Fatherland,  but  when  Sir  Edward 
Goschen's  account  of  his  last  inter- 
view with  the  Chancellor  was 
published,  they  said  to  each  other: 


44  SCRAPS   OF   PAPER 

"Why,  Germany  signed  the  treaty. 
It  is  like  a  promissory  note.  Are 
they  going  back  on  it?"  So  with 
some  of  the  early  German  war 
measures.  The  Government  com- 
mandeered all  the  savings-bank  de- 
posits of  their  own  people,  because, 
as  they  said,  the  money  having 
been  saved,  the  people  could  most 
easily  part  with  it;  and  many 
German  merchants  have  written, 
presumably  by  order,  to  their 
creditors  abroad,  that  they  could 
not  pay  their  debts,  but  that  they 
had  subscribed  to  the  German 
war  loan  in  the  names  of  their 
creditors  for  the  amount  of  their 
debts,  which  they  hoped  would  be 
satisfactory,  and  if  it  was  not,  they 
would  decline,  after  the  war  was 


SCRAPS   OF    PAPER  45 

over,  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  creditors  who  objected  to  this 
method  of  payment.  Things  of 
that  sort  shock  decent  business 
men,  and  the  only  native  Ameri- 
can I  know  with  avowed  German 
sympathies  says  of  them:  "They 
cannot  be  true.  Nobody  would 
do  such  things. " 


EXAMPLES  OF  GERMAN 
"CULTURE" 

Then,  we  do  not  like  the  way 
the  Germans  have  flung  away  their 
manners.  At  first  they  maltreated 
Americans,  on  the  theory  that 
they  were  English,  quite  abomi- 
nably. I  know  American  ladies 
who  were  in  Dresden  two  weeks 
after  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 
They  were  insulted,  arrested  as 
Russian  spies,  and  one  of  them, 
who  was  perfectly  well  known  to 
a  certain  tradesman,  had  her  face 

slapped   by   him.     At   that   time 

46 


<    '     y-^TTI      rr^-TTT^^     " 


GERMAN      CULTURE  47 

the  population  seemed  to  have 
gone  completely  daft,  and  the 
Government  made  no  endeavor  to 
restrain  them,  but,  after  a  few 
weeks,  orders  from  Berlin  were 
given,  in  consequence  of  which 
Americans  everywhere  found  noth- 
ing too  good  for  them.  The  treat- 
ment by  the  German  Government 
of  the  former  French  and  Russian 
Ambassadors  when  they  left  Berlin, 
and  of  the  poor  old  Dowager  Em- 
press of  Russia,  is  almost  incred- 
ible, and  the  Germans  exhibited 
to  them  the  kind  of  culture  that 
existed  in  their  country  in  the  days 
before  Grotius  was  born.  Their 
mouthings  about  the  German  Kul- 
tur,  which  seems  to  have  no  rela- 
tion to  culture,  and  their  fierce  in- 


((    „_,^  ^_T„^   M 


48  GERMAN    "culture 

dignation  about  England's  having 
induced  Japan  to  take  possession 
of  the  port  of  Kiao-Chow  are  not 
unamusing,  if  one  can  be  amused 
at  anything  in  the  midst  of  the 
horrors  of  this  war.  The  German 
possession  of  Kiao-Chow  was  as 
naked  a  theft  as  any  of  which  the 
Germans  have  ever  accused  Eng- 
land, and  what  the  Japanese  have 
done  is  simply  to  copy  the  ultima- 
tum, in  part  word  for  word,  which 
the  Germans  sent  to  them  many 
years  ago  and  send  it  back  to  them. 
Why  should  they  get  feverish 
about  that? 

Finally,  it  appears  to  Americans 
that  the  Germans  are  carrying  on 
this  war  in  a  way  which  is  not  only 
cruel,  but  brutal  and  uncivilized. 


GERMAN    "culture"  49 


The  theory  that  the  civil  popula- 
tion of  a  country — like  the  lame 
shoemaker  of  Zabern — must  be 
terrified  into  submission  is  perhaps 
arguable,  but  it  cannot  be  done 
through  the  abolition  of  common, 
human  feeling,  and  in  Belgium  the 
Germans  appear  to  be  endeavoring 
to  reduce  to  practice  some  of  the 
Kaiser's  speeches  which  I  supposed 
were  to  be  taken  as  largely  rhetori- 
cal, like  the  Wagnerian  talk  about 
their  golden  helms,  their  shining 
armor,  their  pure  and  sacred 
swords,  and  so  on.  But  not  at  all. 
The  Germans  have  embarked  upon 
a  deliberate,  calculated,  wanton, 
and  senseless  campaign  of  destruc- 
tion. In  the  mailed  fist  speech  the 
Kaiser  said:    "Give  no    quarter; 


50  GERMAN    "culture" 


make  yotirself  as  terrible  as  did 
the  Huns  under  Attila. "  His 
people  are  now  doing  it.  I  know 
of  an  American  lady  who  was  at 
a  hotel  in  Belgium  the  evening 
the  Germans  came  in  early  in 
August.  The  order  was  given 
to  shut  all  windows — the  ther- 
mometer was  ninety  degrees — and 
they  were  told  that  anyone  who 
looked  out  would  be  shot.  One 
man  was  shot  in  that  hotel  during 
the  night,  and  early  the  next  morn- 
ing twenty-odd  people,  including 
women  and  old  men,  were  lined 
up  and  shot.  There  are  many 
well  authenticated  reports  of  simi- 
lar occurrences,  and  the  Figaro  on 
September  24th  printed  a  copy  of 
a  proclamation  which  L6on  Bour- 


(   (        _,_._     ~,,.T^-_      >> 


GERMAN        CULTURE  5I 

geois,  the  former  Premier,  found 
affixed  to  the  walls  of  Rheims 
Cathedral.  The  proclamation  was 
signed  "By  Order  of  the  German 
Authorities."     It  says  in  part: 

"In  order  to  secure  the  safety 
of  the  troops  and  in  order  to  assure 
calm  among  the  population  of 
Rheims,  the  persons  named  below 
have  been  taken  as  hostages  by  the 
General  in  command  of  the  Ger- 
man army  and  will  be  shot  on  the 
least  attempt  at  disorder.  In  ad- 
dition the  town  will  be  entirely 
or  partially  burned  and  the  in- 
habitants hanged  if  a  single  infrac- 
tion of  the  preceding  instructions 
occurs."  This  is  followed  by  the 
names  of  a  number  of  prominent 
citizens. 


52  GERMAN    **  CULTURE  " 


The  German  Chancellor,  on  Au- 
gust 14th  said:  "We  expect  that 
the  sense  of  justice  of  the  American 
people  will  enable  them  to  compre- 
hend our  situation.  We  invite 
their  opinion  as  to  the  one-sided 
English  representations,  and  ask 
them  to  examine  our  point  of  view 
in  an  unprejudiced  way. 

"The  sympathy  of  the  American 
nation  will  then  lie  with  German 
culture  and  civilization,  fighting 
against  a  half  Asiatic  and  slightly 
cultured  barbarism." 

We  have  tried  to  examine  their 
point  of  view  but  I,  for  one,  say 
that  the  way  the  Germans  have 
behaved  in  Belgium  is  perfectly 
detestable.  There  are  upwards  of 
60,000  Belgians  in  England  to-day 


GERMAN   "  CULTURE  "  53 

being  fed,  clothed,  and  sheltered, 
and  the  ghastly  tales  they  have  to 
tell  of  the  reasons  why  they  are 
broken  and  penniless  fugitives  in 
a  strange  land  are  making  the 
world  see  red.  Poor  Belgium! 
Have  some  of  the  Kultur  soldiers 
been  reading  Motley  so  as  to  learn 
how  to  visit  on  the  land  the  Span- 
ish terror?  "War,"  the  Chan- 
cellor may  reply,  "is,  as  General 
Sherman  said,  hell."  So  it  is, 
and  it  is  also  damnation  to  those 
who  wage  it  as  Germany  is  now 
waging  it  in  Belgium.  Neither 
Sherman  nor  any  other  Americans 
ever  ordered  out  a  squad  of  non- 
combatants,  of  old  men,  youths, 
and  women,  to  be  shot.  That  is 
defended  as  a  military  necessity; 


54  GERMAN    "culture" 


but  from  our  point  of  view,  some 
at  least  of  the  German  command- 
ants in  Belgium,  soaked  in  German 
culture  though  they  be,  are  blood 
brothers  to  the  Mexican  gentlemen 
who  are  thieves,  murderers,  and 
patriot  generals  on  alternate  days. 
As  we  remember  the  burning  of  the 
library  at  Lou  vain,  as  we  read  the 
other  day  Mr.  Whitney  Warren's 
account  of  the  destruction  of 
Rheims  Cathedral,  which,  remem- 
bering the  position  of  that  edifice, 
could  only  have  been  deliberate, 
we  regard  the  Pan-Slavic  peril  with 
perfect  tranquillity,  for  we  are  sure 
it  cannot  be  more  odious  than  the 
Pan-Germanic  practice. 

I  say  nothing  of  the  unspeakable 
outrages    and    mutilations    which 


GERMAN        CULTURE  55 

are  charged.  I  can  conceive  that 
the  Belgians  whom  the  Germans 
have  driven  mad,  have  done  out- 
rageous things,  but  I  refuse  to 
beHeve,  except  on  the  evidence  of 
my  own  senses,  that  the  offenses 
charged  against  German  troops 
and  German  officers  can  be  true. 
I  suppose  on  the  great  accounting 
at  the  end  of  the  war  some  of  the 
sufferers  will  still  be  alive  and  can 
be  produced.  Meanwhile,  if  the 
Germans  are  disturbed  about  the 
charges,  they  ought  to  be  told  they 
should  not  be  so  childish  as  to 
offer  the  testimony  of  a  dozen 
reporters  who  have  been  all  over 
Belgium  and  seen  nothing,  or 
offer  to  appoint  an  impartial  judge 
to  investigate.     What  they  should 


<(  _,,_  _„_._  »» 


56  GERMAN       CULTURE 

do  is  to  get  a  few  judges  from  the 
neutral  countries  of  the  highest 
position  and  hang  everybody  those 
judges  find  guilty  of  murder,  arson, 
mayhem,  or  rape. 


THE  APPEALS  TO  AMERICA 

Two  of  the  various  German 
appeals  to  America  deserve  special 
mention.  The  first,  called  The 
Truth,  reminds  me  of  a  saying  of 
Lessing's  that  if  the  gods  held  in 
one  hand  the  truth,  and  in  the 
other  the  pursuit  of  truth,  the  wise 
man  would  say :  ' '  Give  me  the  pur- 
suit of  truth;  the  truth  Is  not  for 
mortals."  I  should  advise  Herr 
Ballin  and  Prince  Blilow,  and  their 
associates,  to  ponder  on  this  obser- 
vation and  instruct  their  editors 
to    get    out    an    expurgated    and 

57 


58     THE   APPEALS   TO   AMERICA 

amended  edition  of  their  pamphlet 
as  soon  as  possible.  What  they 
say  about  neutrality  is,  however, 
such  rubbish  that  one  is  constrained 
to  say  to  Mr.  Ballin:  "You  are 
one  of  the  most  successful  business 
men  in  the  world.  Is  an  obligation 
of  the  Hamburg-American  Steam- 
ship Company  signed  by  you  good, 
or  is  it  only  a  scrap  of  paper?" — 
and  to  Prince  Biilow:  "You  are  a 
gentleman.  Do  you  invite  us  to 
doubt  your  plighted  word?" 

The  other  appeal  by  Professors 
Rudolf  Eucken  and  Ernst  H. 
Haeckel  is  a  little  puzzling,  for 
on  August  1 8th  they  say,  "On 
England  alone  falls  the  monstrous 
guilt  and  the  historical  responsi- 
bility,"  and  on  the  31st  of  August 


THE   APPEALS   TO   AMERICA     59 

they  declare  "nobody  but  Russia 
is  to  blame  for  the  outbreak  of  the 
war."  They  are  of  the  opinion 
that  England's  complaints  of  the 
violation  of  international  law  "are 
the  most  atrocious  hypocrisy  and 
the  vilest  Pharisaism,"  and  their 
language  is  so  lurid  that,  great 
names  though  they  bear,  they 
must  be  considered  as  really  only 
a  couple  of  peevish  old  gentlemen 
who  have  quite  lost  their  tempers. 
There  have  been  other  appeals 
to  the  American  people  which  I 
have  not  myself  seen,  but  they  are 
without  avail.  It  is  only  natural 
for  American  citizens  who  were 
born  in  Germany,  or  one  of  whose 
parents  was  born  in  Germany,  to 
sympathize  with  the  Fatherland 


60  THE  APPEALS  TO  AMERICA 

because  they  have  not  shaken  off 
the  habits  of  beHeving  what  they 
are  told  to  beHeve,  and  accepting 
as  final  that  which  is  "officially 
stated."  Those  habits  have  led 
to  some  very  curious  misapprehen- 
sions in  parts  of  Germany  as  to 
what  is  now  going  on.  Hundreds 
of  people  have  returned  here  from 
Germany  within  the  past  six  weeks 
who,  until  they  got  the  New  York 
papers  at  Quarantine,  believed 
that  all  the  English  ports  were 
closed  by  German  mines,  that 
there  were  no  English  ships  coming 
to  America,  that  the  people  in  the 
south  of  England  were  starving, 
that  Leeds  had  been  destroyed  by 
Zeppelin  bombs,  and  that  there 
was  a  rebellion  in  India. 


THE   APPEALS   TO   AMERICA     6 1 

I  have,  however,  been  surprised 
at  the  number  of  native  Germans 
who  say  "The  Kaiser  is  dead 
wrong  this  time,"  and  who  are  not 
German  sympathizers  in  this  war 
at  all.  Among  the  native-born 
Americans  the  feeling  is  almost 
wholly  in  favor  of  the  allies,  and 
among  the  hundreds  and  even 
thousands  of  Americans  also  like 
myself  who  have  lived  and  studied 
in  Germany,  I  believe  the  fact  to 
be  that  the  overwhelming  majority 
now  think  of  the  Fatherland  as 
they  would  think  of  an  old  friend 
whohadgoneout  of  hismind.  We 
believe  the  Germans  to  be  crazed 
by  militarism  and  the  contempla- 
tion of  their  own  greatness  and 
power.        We    believe    Germany, 


62     THE   APPEALS   TO   AMERICA 

great  and  powerful  nation  that  it 
is,  with  an  army  and  perfection 
of  organization  which  give  many 
people  a  sense  of  awe  as  of  some- 
thing superhuman,  is  suffering 
from  some  fatal  delusions  as  to  its 
position  in  the  world,  as  to  what 
the  world  thinks  of  Germany,  and 
as  to  what  will  be  the  results  of  its 
present  great  adventure.  Power, 
the  Germans  hold,  is  the  essence 
of  the  state;  nothing  should  re- 
strain its  exercise  in  the  interests 
of  the  state;  and  through  it  alone 
the  state  expresses  its  will ;  individ- 
ualism is  submerged  in  the  state. 
They  have  almost  created  a  re- 
ligion of  power  and  valor,  and 
Christianity  is  openly  proclaimed 
to  be  a  worn-out  creed. 


THE   APPEALS   TO   AMERICA     63 

These  theories  explain  much  if 
not  everything  which  has  thus  far 
taken  place  during  the  war.  But 
much  has  occurred  which  can  be 
accounted  for  only  upon  entirely 
different  theories  of  life  and  con- 
duct. How  can  Germany  from 
its  own  standpoint  account  for  the 
Belgian  refusal  of  its  pieces  of 
silver,  or  for  the  defense  by  the 
Belgians  of  their  homes  and  their 
individuality  until  they  have  won 
a  place  in  the  world's  history 
beside  the  Greek  heroes  who  died 
at  Thermopylae?  How  can  Ger- 
many account  for  the  British  Em- 
pire itself?  There  are  in  India 
270,000,000  people  governed  by  less 
than  eight  hundred  white  men  with 
an   insignificant    army.     Canada, 


64    THE  APPEALS   TO   AMERICA 

Australia,  and  New  Zealand  and 
the  islands  all  over  the  globe  are 
bound  to  Great  Britain  by  little 
more  than  a  flag  and  a  language, 
and  yet  they  have  begun  to  pour 
forth  money  and  men  to  fight 
against  the  extension  of  German 
Kultur,  and  promise  as  much  and 
as  many  more  as  are  necessary  to 
prevent  a  final  German  victory. 


GERMANY  AND  COLONIAL 
EMPIRE 

The  most  dangerous  of  the  de- 
lusions, under  which,  as  I  view  it, 
Germany  is  now  laboring,  is  about 
colonies  and  a  colonial  empire. 
The  loudly  increasing  cry  in  Ger- 
many for  the  past  few  years  that 
she  must  have  a  place  under  the 
sun,  which  I  at  first  thought  meant 
we  must  allow  without  demur  the 
individual  German  to  steal  our 
seats  in  the  railway  carriages  and 
hustle  and  crowd  our  daughters 
away  from  their  places  in  foreign 

s  65 


66  COLONIAL   EMPIRE 

galleries,  really  means  that  Ger- 
many must  have  great  colonies 
which  can  relieve  the  pressure  of 
her  population  and  where  the 
emigrants  can  still  remain  German 
and  find,  as  Bemhardi  says,  a 
German  way  of  living.  Had  it 
been  written  in  the  Book  of  Fate 
that  the  Germans  were  to  be  a 
colonial  power,  they  would  have 
had  their  colonies  long  ago — that 
is,  the  Germans  would  have  gone 
out  into  the  waste  places  in  the 
world,  settled  and  improved  them, 
and  the  flag  of  the  Fatherland 
would  have  followed  them.  This 
they  did  not  do,  and  now  that  the 
earth  is  fully  occupied,  the  only 
way  in  which  she  can  get  this  par- 
ticular place  under  the  sun  is  by 


COLONIAL   EMPIRE  6/ 

somehow  or  other  getting  posses- 
sion of  what  belongs  to  somebody- 
else.  Conquest  is  an  intelligible 
way  to  go  about  it  and  is  appar- 
ently one  of  the  purposes  of  the 
present  enterprise,  but  the  German 
Government  has  apparently  had 
other  ways  in  mind.  The  German 
interests  in  Morocco  for  instance 
were  few  and  unimportant,  yet,  a 
short  time  ago,  if  Professor  Usher 
is  correct,  the  German  Govern- 
ment endeavored  to  get  into  that 
country  through  agents  provoca- 
teurs in  a  way  which  was  as 
crooked  and  foolish,  as  Admiral 
Diedrich's  performances  in  Manila 
Bay  were  stupid.' 

Let   us   suppose,   however,   the 

'Usher:  Pan-Germanism,  pp.  17-18. 


68  COLONIAL   EMPIRE 

Germans  had  their  colonies.  I 
consider  that  the  German  theory 
of  government  by  force  and  the 
consequent  German  theory  of  regu- 
lating everything  public  and  pri- 
vate— I  have  known  a  German 
policeman  to  stop  a  young  Ameri- 
can from  whistling  quietly  on  the 
street — are  incompatible  with  the 
elasticity  and  tact  essential  in  col- 
onial administration,  and,  so  far  as 
one  can  judge,  the  Germans  would 
be  sure  to  make  a  mess  of  their 
colonies.  The  filthy  scandals  of 
Dr.  Carl  Peters  and  the  expense 
and  troubles  of  the  Herero  War 
are  not  forgotten,  and  I  remember 
that  when  Germany  got  one  of 
the  Samoan  Islands  there  was  the 
greatest  difficulty  in   getting  the 


COLONIAL   EMPIRE  69 

Samoans,  who  were  oiling  them- 
selves in  the  sun,  to  understand 
that  when  a  German  officer  ap- 
peared they  must  stand  up  and 
salute. 

The  main  difficulty,  however, 
with  the  German  colonies  would 
be  the  Germans  themselves.  When 
they  go  out  into  the  great  world 
they  do  not  want,  as  Bernhardi 
says,  to  find  a  German  way  of 
living,  but  they  want  to  find  a 
better  way.  I  heard  recently  from 
a  friend  of  a  case  in  point.  He 
met  a  German  merchant  in  one  of 
the  towns  of  British  South  Africa 
and  said  to  him,  "What  are  you 
doing  here?  I  should  think  you 
would  be  at  such  and  such  a 
place" — the  capital  town  of  the 


70  COLONIAL  EMPIRE 

nearest  German  colony.  The 
German  replied:  "I  went  there, 
and  when  I  got  out  at  the  station 
there  was  a  German  sentry  with  a 
gun.  When  I  went  to  the  Com- 
missioner's house  there  was  an- 
other sentry  with  a  gun.  After 
I  got  into  the  house,  there  was  a 
large  room  all  full  of  German  red 
tape.  So  I  got  away  and  came  here, 
where  I  have  done  very  well." 

The  fact  seems  to  be  that  the 
Prussian  discipline  which  has  been 
so  exalted  has  done  its  work  and 
has  overdone  it — there  are  three 
suicides  in  Berlin  to  one  in  London. 
When  a  German  escapes  from 
under  that  discipline  he  never 
again  subjects  himself  to  its  thralls, 
and  one  of  the  most  curious  things 


COLONIAL    EMPIRE  7 1 

to  be  noted  in  a  general  survey  of 
the  world  is  that  among  all  the 
millions  of  Germans  who  have 
left  the  Fatherland  since  1848  for 
this  country  so  very  few  of  them 
ever  go  back  to  Germany.  It  is 
not  only  that  they  better  them- 
selves materially,  but  they  get  a 
taste  for  the  sort  of  freedom  they 
never  got  at  home.  A  good  many 
German  mercenaries,  who  enlisted 
here  during  the  Civil  War  for  the 
sake  of  the  high  bounties  we  paid 
for  recruits,  went  back  and  are 
living  on  their  pensions,  and  a  few 
international  bankers  who  never 
struck  root  here  have  gone  back, 
but  in  a  large  acquaintance  I  have 
heard  of  only  one  instance  where  a 
German   who   had   prospered   re- 


72  COLONIAL  EMPIRE 

turned  to  pass  his  old  age  at  home. 
That  was  the  case  of  a  brewer  who 
had  made  a  few  hundred  thousand 
dollars  and  then  built  for  himself 
a  house  in  the  German  district 
whence  he  had  emigrated,  such  as 
his  boyhood's  fancy  had  pictured 
he  would  have  in  his  old  age,  and 
into  that  house  he  moved  to  end 
his  days.  At  the  end  of  two 
months  he  locked  the  front  door, 
and  said,  "By  God!  I  can't  stand 
it  another  minute," — and  came 
back  to  his  place  in  the  Middle 
West.  He  did  not  like  what  he 
thought  was  the  continual  inter- 
ference and  meddling  in  his  private 
affairs. 

Many  years  ago  I  was  concerned 
in  the  establishment  in  this  city 


COLONIAL   EMPIRE  73 

of  a  system  of  free  circulating 
libraries,  and  one  evening  the 
late  Mr.  Oswald  Ottendorfer,  the 
founder  and  owner  of  the  Staats- 
Zeitiing  in  this  city  sent  for  me 
and  two  of  my  associates  and  said 
he  had  been  interested  in  our  work, 
and  proposed  to  give  us  a  library, 
and  stock  it  with  German  books. 
He  went  on  to  say:  "I  intend  to 
attach  to  this  gift  one  condition. 
I  do  not  deceive  myself  about  my 
people  at  all.  I  am  a  German, 
and  as  long  as  there  is  German 
immigration  into  this  country  there 
will  be  a  German  element  here,  but 
as  immigration  ceases  the  Ger- 
man element  will  pass  away.  The 
Germans  forget  their  language, 
do    not   keep   up  their   ties  with 


74  COLONIAL   EMPIRE 

the  old  country,  and  in  time  they 
will  as  a  distinct  element  cease  to 
exist.     I  hope  we  shall  contribute 
to   the   ultimate   American   some 
qualities  of  thoroughness,  honesty, 
and  good  citizenship,  but  as  an 
element  we  shall  cease  to  be.     And 
the   condition   which   I   have   at- 
tached to  this  gift  is  that  a  large 
vault  I  have  placed  in  the  cellar 
shall   be   maintained   as   a   place 
where  the  records  of  the  German 
societies    as    they    gradually    die 
shall    be    preserved."     That    li- 
brary has  long  since  been  amalga- 
mated    with     the     great     public 
library  of  New  York.     The  vault 
is  maintained,  and  I  believe  the 
records   of   one    or   two    German 
societies  are  already  in  it. 


COLONIAL   EMPIRE  75 

Mr.  Ottendorfer  was  right.  The 
Germans  in  America  are  among  the 
best,  sanest,  and  most  valuable  of 
our  citizens,  but  the  Germans  are 
of  all  people  the  least  tenacious  of 
their  nationality.  In  this  country 
the  English,  Scotch,  and  even  the 
Irish  speak  of  "home"  for  genera- 
tions. The  Scandinavians  charter 
ships  to  go  "home"  to  spend  their 
Christmas;  numbers  of  them  who 
prosper  go  back  to  pass  their  old 
age.  The  Slavs  go  back  by  thou- 
sands, and  have  carried  the  English 
language  with  them,  so  much  so 
that  in  one  case  an  election  for  the 
Reichsrath  in  Austria  was  con- 
ducted in  that  language.'  The 
Italians  go  back  by  tens  of  thou- 

'  Steiner. 


76  COLONIAL   EMPIRE 

sands  and  you  can  hardly  find  a 
town  in  Italy  in  which  someone  is 
not  living  in  a  little  vineyard  or 
villmo  who  made  his  money  in 
America.  But,  as  I  have  said,  the 
Germans  practically  never  go  back. 
They  become  Americans,  just  as 
they  became  Australians  in  Aus- 
tralia, where  they  are  now  support- 
ing their  new  country  against  the 
old,  or  they  become  Brazilians, 
Chilians,  Central  Americans,  even 
Haitians,  and  their  chocolate  col- 
ored children  are  outside  the  Ger- 
man culture  entirely. 


AMERICA'S  REPLY  TO  THE 
APPEALS 

HeiT  Ballin's  and  Prince  Bil- 
low's editors,  in  their  version  of 
The  Truth,  cry  out,  "Listen,  all  ye 
people."  Perhaps  I  may  reply 
to  them :  Listen  again.  You  have 
guns  the  like  of  which  have  never 
been  seen  on  land  or  sea,  but  you 
can  not  hold  the  hearts  of  your 
people.  They  want  something 
larger  than  you  can  give  them. 
Your  ultimate  design  to  confer 
*' peace,  enlightenment,  and  pros- 
perity" upon  the  rest  of  the  world, 

77 


78  America's  reply  to  appeals 

the  world  will  not  have.  You  are 
unanimous  to-day  and  splendid  in 
your  futile  endeavors  to  realize 
your  ideals,  but  General  Nogi,  the 
conqueror  of  Port  Arthtu*,  is  re- 
ported to  have  said :  "  I  foresee  two 
more  wars,  one  of  which  will  be 
fought  out  on  the  plains  of  Belgium 
and  will  leave  Germany  so  beaten 
and  terrified  that  there  will  not  be 
another  war  for  a  hundred  years 
and  perhaps  never. ' '  Listen  again 
to  the  prayers  of  more  millions 
than  you  can  ever  hope  to  be,  that 
such  may  be  the  result  of  this  war, 
and  renounce  your  false  gods, 
mind  your  own  great  business, 
give  us  back  the  Germany  of 
Luther,  Beethoven,  Goethe,  Schil- 
ler, and  Kant,  and  try  to  recognize 


AMERICA  S  REPLY  TO  APPEALS  79 

that  your  function  on  this  earth 
is  not  to  own  it,  but  is  to  fertilize 
other  peoples — as  you  have  been 
doing  for  a  thousand  years. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


231968 


Form  L-9-15m-7,'32 


lir  sOIITHf  RN  Rtr,if|hAi   i  ir-iqARY  CAfJi  iTY 


AA    000  709  764    5 


t 


PLEA^^  DO  NOT  REMOVE 
THIS  BOOK  CARD  i 


^i  ::braryq^ 


uj 


%ojnv3jo^ 

University  Research  Library 


Ji 

Ui 


o 


